Olivia's Graduation Pictures

This is Olivia at 18 years old.  Who'd a thought she'd grow up?  And on top of that, she'd grow up to become so beautiful inside and out! Of course, I'm just a little partial.

It makes my heart sing to see this picture.  I can honestly say that these two really enjoy each other.  Even though Anthony is 2 1/2 years younger, he is like a big brother in a way.  He is a confident guy and isn't afraid to protect his sister if need be.  I'll never forget when he expressed his concern about her riding her bicycle alone and he decided to go with her.

This table was so much fun for me to help Olivia put together.  We decided to stick with 4 subjects that describe her the best.  Photography on the left, music in the middle, first aid (emergency stuff) on the right and thought provoking quotes throughout.  Olivia loves these 4 things a lot!

Olivia's original cake that we ordered is below.  She loves green and orange and picked chocolate for the cake and frosting.  Then we discovered that over 100 people had RSVP'd!  So I went out the day before the graduation and picked up the white cake above and had them put her name on it.

This picture is of Olivia when she was 3 months old with a stack of her favorite books.

Micah and Will played with these guns during the whole graduation in the front row!  It was a bit tricky keeping them quiet but I'm glad they had fun.

Decorations that we borrowed.  Absolutely loved these things.  They added so much to our 150 year old church dining hall.

 Sisters and the best of friends.  I'm so thankful I have two girls.  They are 4 years apart but have shared a room almost their whole lives.  Julia has a very hard time thinking about Olivia ever living away from her.  It will be interesting to see what the future holds. I have a feeling that they will always be close.

My wonderful hubby who pulled off his speech the morning of.  He never prepares much in advance. I'm so jealous that he can do that and do it well.  

Me, on the other hand, prepared what I wanted to say weeks in advance and kept revising it over and over.  Then I got up there and kind of second guessed my plans and skipped over parts of it thinking our guests weren't that interested.  Funny how a bunch of faces staring at you can influence you.

Pictures of the crowd.

 Olivia and Julia played a duet of Glorify Thy Name and I Love You, Lord.  No one was leading the singing but everyone began singing along.  This brought tears to my eyes.  I was struck with what a beautiful group of friends we have that love Jesus and were showing their love for Olivia.  It was one of those moments I will never forget.

Olivia surprised me and got up in front of everyone and shared her testimony with no notes.  She just shared her story of how God revealed himself to her and how much he has impacted her life.

Proud Mommy moment!

 Olivia wrote a song called You Are My Everything.  Sarah, who is playing piano, put it to music.  I thought it was only fitting that Olivia sing it for the first time publicly at her graduation.

Julia paid a tribute to Olivia and she didn't cry!  She is a very cute 13 year old, I must say.

These 4 sang, O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus.

 So these two really blew me away.

Anthony wrote a funny skit giving the graduate advice.

Throughout the week leading up to her graduation, he kept running it by me.  I wasn't sure if it would turn out very funny or if the audience would get his jokes or not.

But once they got up there and started in, they were just darling together, acting out their parts and just having fun up there.  

 They really cracked themselves up which was so entertaining to watch!

Lastly, we presented Olivia with her diploma.  

These pictures are so sweet.  Michelle is a friend and co-worker of Rich's.

One of my best friend's daughter is Lydia Schulz.  She has developed a sweet friendship with Olivia.

More pictures of her table.

Olivia is really into this right now and is looking into becoming EMT certified.

She literally lights up whenever an ambulance or fire truck drives by.

You know your child has an interest in something specific when they read EMT textbooks in their spare time!

The food line.  I love the decorations hanging from the ceiling in these pictures.

More friends and guests.  Dear, dear people who have been instrumental in Olivia's life and my own, for that matter.

Little Levi and Esther getting a good look at each other.

Olivia and Faith have a love for the medical world in common not to mention they seem to have similar personalities! It will be fun to see what doors God opens for these two in the future.

I love the way Emily is hanging on her mother's shoulder.

My Mother and Father-in-law serving punch and coffee together.  What a cute pair!

You have to speak up when talking to my Father-in-law.  I can just hear him asking loudly, "Huh?  You want more?  or No?"

Levi was on his own a bit with all these people.  Looks like he was having fun looking at the people outside.

These two girls are sisters.  Hope in the picture above and Faith in the picture below.  Aren't they pretty?  Faith took all these pictures for us and I'm so grateful I have a detailed account of the whole day.

Pictures of the whole family.  It was so wonderful to have both my parents and Rich's parents fly out to be here to see Olivia graduate.  Even one of Rich's sister's was able to come!  We felt very loved and supported.

I can't imagine celebrating this special day and not having my parents attend.  I'm so glad they were able to make it.

This is Olivia's true personality!

I'm so pleased that we chose to make a big deal out of Olivia's high school graduation.  We could have celebrated in a variety of ways but this just seemed fitting.  Olivia and I had a blast planning everything that it really wasn't a big head ache.  It could have been stressful for me since I'm not a big party thrower but it wasn't.  God really showed up for this one.  Olivia will remember this forever and that is what I'd hoped for.

Olivia has begun her own blog and needs some followers.  If you are interested in it go to
servantoftheking95.blogspot.com

Kristin Lodi

New Way of Eating = New recipes!

I'm so excited to tell you that loosing weight can be fun and enjoyable.  I've just put the whole family on the Trim, Healthy Mama plan.  The book is at www.trimhealthymama.com.  I've had my eye on this book for quite awhile as many of my friends were buying it and discussing it.  I waiting until May which is Mother's day month and my birthday to ask for it. 

 Now that I'm 46 years old I'm not loosing weight like I used to.  I used to be able to skip a meal or just eat fruit for breakfast and then cut out desserts and get back to my pre-pregnancy weight pretty easily.  Two years after the birth of my 6th baby, I find myself struggling with not only an extra 10 lbs but my body shape has changed.  I no longer seem to have a waist!  All my life I've carried extra weight in my hips and thighs but not my waist or arms.  Now my arms are flabby, my stomach is bulging and so I'm feeling my age.  I do have a sluggish thyroid so I'm on Armor to give my thyroid a boost which I thought would give my metabolism a boost too.  But after 3 months of thyroid meds, I'm not able to get this weight off.  My doctor put me on the paleo diet which just means no carbs. I was allowing myself to eat fruit whenever and milk in my coffee which was probably spiking my blood sugar and at the wrong times. Never eating grains is quite a bit of work and to have little to no results is draining. This diet is different in that you can have carbs, you just have to eat them at the right time and limit your carb grams to 45 per meal.  Once you get the hang of it it's easy.  There is plenty of desserts you can play around with they just all contain Stevia instead of artificial sweeteners or even natural sugars.  I did not know that honey does the same thing in your body that sugar does as far as glucose levels go. Knowing how to combine your fats, carbs and protein is key to this diet.

I began looking at the Trim, Healthy Mama Facebook page and reading other peoples testimonies and looking at all the recipes and was hooked!   I wanted to start immediately.  So I tried my best while waiting for the book to come in the mail.  This is the dinner we were having the day I received the book.  

I knew my family would not be satisfied with barbecued beef ribs, cucumber salad and asparagus so I quickly checked the book for another side.  I made the cauliflower potato salad and it was so yummy!

This is considered a Satisfying meal or S meal for short because it has a protein, high fat and hardly any carbs.  No potatoes in that salad and no side of bread or any fruit to spike your blood sugar levels.  So you can eat all this yummy food and still loose weight.

This is an S lunch.  I'm telling you, this lunch was so tastey I could hardly contain myself.  It's a BLT salad on top of paleo flatbread.  So the bacon and mayo make it high in fat.  The flatbread is made with eggs, coconut flour, and cream.  Bacon makes everything fabulous and you can have it.  I buy the good stuff made with no nitrates and it's uncured.  Just a few pieces crumbled into your salad or casserole really makes a difference.

A side of fresh coconut is a yummy, crunchy snack or side to your lunch instead of crackers or potato chips. The benefits of coconut are amazing!

The key to making a good salad is lots of toppings.  My mother-in-law makes the best Italian salad and I noticed that she puts all the toppings in first, filling her bowl about 1/3 of the way and then adds her lettuce.  She tosses it with an Italian dressing and adds cracked pepper and salt.  My standard salad usually includes tomato, red onion, olives,  and shredded parmesan cheese.  Avocado is good on this too but not everyone in my family likes it.  So I put in on myself after I've put a large helping on my plate.  We make a delicious creamy Italian dressing  that is easy and healthy.  I've given this recipe out to many friends as it seems to be a favorite for lots of people. We make a lot so we have it on hand all week but you could cut the recipe in half if you don't want that much.

I'll list it here so you don't have to remember to ask me later:

• 1 cup of Apple Cider Vinager
• 2 clove of garlic
• 1 Tbsp of Tahini
• 1 tsp of Italian seasoning
• 1 tsp of salt
• 1/2 tsp of pepper
• a dash of Stevi
• 1 cup of Olive oil

Blend the first 7 ingredients in blender or Vita-mix and then slowly add Olive oil and blend on low till it's all nice and creamy looking.  Tahini is Sesame Seed butter, in case you are wondering and this is what makes it creamy looking. It's found in the same section as your peanut butter at the grocery store. You could make it without it but it would turn out more like an original Italian dressing.

This is the chili relleno casserole from the THM book.  It's so easy and fast to make.  Chicken, green chilis, cheese and eggs. 

Again this is an S meal with little to no carbs.  The berries don't count as carbs.  

You can have carbs on this plan but I'm still figuring out how to add them in without adding too many and you then have just a little fat. These are called Energy meals or E meals. I'm showing you all S meals in this post.

This was such a good side, I just have to share it with you!  I got the basic idea from THM but I tweaked it a bit.  It was easy and a filling side for our barbecued chicken dinner.  It's hard to know what to fix as a side if you want to eat an S-meal.  Potatoes and rice are out so this recipe was a great alternative!

• 2 1/2 yellow or green zucchinis (shredded)
• 1/2 cup of red onion
• 1 cup of shredded cheese
• 5 eggs
• 1/3 cup of cream
• Mix it all together and add salt and pepper.  Grease your muffin tins and Bake at 350* for 20 min.

Serve your mini zucchini quiches with sauteed green beans adding chopped almonds and parmesan.  Serve these sides with your barbecued chicken and you've got yourself a fat burning S meal! 

I think this plan will help me eat right for the rest of my life because now I can have a few carbs each day so I'm not denying myself so much and then feeling guilty when I cheat.  Now I understand how to combine food and keep my sugar levels down to a reasonable level which will keep me healthier and keep my body from storing glucose in my fat cells.  I've already lost 6 pounds which is encouraging.  The book is a good read and quite entertaining too.  I highly recommend it!

Blessings,

Kristin

Summer Fun

Olivia got a new camera for graduation and this picture was taken with it.  She has a nice zoom option! I love birds as long as they are not flying anywhere near me.  Flying things freak me out when they are fluttering next to my head and I have no control over what they might do!  They sure are cool to look at though, from afar.  Birds give out such a peaceful feeling.  Probably because they never seem troubled.

With two boys who fight a whole lot, I've been trying to pull tricks out of my hat to keep them occupied.  I used to live and breath "fun activities for kids" but as the years go by, I've forgotten what they love to do.  One day when I was particularly tired of trying to entertain my almost 5 year old, I saw a bucket out back and the hose and thought, "hey, who cares if he gets wet or dirty, I'll just give him a bath when he is done!"  Instant entertainment, when there is water around, right?

Then I was reminded of many summers spent in these little plastic pools and I went out to find one.  I'm still hopeful it will be just as entertaining next week as it was the first week.

We have a pair of lovebirds in our backyard and I'm pretty sure they have babies in one of our trees.  I'm a little scared to go searching since when I go to pick my tomatoes, they yell at me and fly around just like a mother bird would to protect her young.

Another summer activity that Anthony and I do every year is make soap.  This is our second batch this month.

Anthony always tries crazy stuff (his is on the left) and I decided to do my own since I really wanted a fresh green soap with a lemongrass scent.

Making stuff is so fun especially when it's useful. I love learning how to make things so that we don't have to rely so much on big companies to produce what we need to survive. I just recently learned how to make a lovely scented paste to use as a deodorant!  I don't have a picture of it here but the recipe is so easy that I have to share it with you.  It works so well that you only need to apply it in the morning and you will be good to go all day long!  And if I can say that, living in Texas, you know it's got some awesome oder power and . . . it's all natural!

Love this picture of Anthony's soap.

Ok, deodorant recipe is:

Equal amounts of Arrowroot and Baking Soda (I used 1/4 cup)

Stir together and then moisten with coconut oil until it's the consistency you like.  It doesn't take much.  I think I used maybe 2 TBSP.  I might add a little more to see If I can make it more like a lotion than a paste.  Then I used a Young Living essential oil called Thieves to scent it and for it's anti bacterial/fungal properties.  

I hope to post some pictures of Olivia's graduation once I get them.  Stay tuned!

Enjoying every minute

My firstborn is graduating from Highschool!  This has been a year of many 1st for Olivia.  She is just shocked that she is graduating, she has been learning how to drive this year, filled out her first application for a real job, and is turning 18 years old!  All this has come together the past few months and is coming to fruition next week!  It is overwhelming for her and me as well.  Although, I can't say I feel overwhelmed but just an immense amount of gratitude to God for guiding and leading her all these years.

Am I proud of her?  Of course I am!  She has made some very good choices and still looks to her parents for advice, for which I am grateful.  I'm grateful I still have a "say" in her life and yet she is becoming more and more independent.  It's still nice to know, though, that she wants our approval and will ask us for our opinions about her options for her future.

I find myself realizing that she is not an outcome of our great parenting but of God's hand upon her.  Oh, I'd like to think I had a huge part in the beautiful person she is, but really, I know my weaknesses and my faults are glaring at me on a daily basis.  I fight constantly with my flesh and can say that I don't always model Jesus in our home.  In fact, some weeks I rarely model Jesus at all!  So really, God has blessed us with a daughter who desires to serve Him.  When I look back over her life thus far, I can see how He has had his hands all over her life teaching her of himself through many different people along the way.

So her graduation will not be a ceremony to flaunt her accomplishments.  Her success is not from human hands.  It is all God.  So it will be a celebration of what God has done in her, through her, and for her.  This is what's so nice about planning your own graduation.  Instead of focusing on the graduate, you can focus on Him who takes our mistakes and makes them wonderful! I'm enjoying every minute of it.

Imaginary Friends

Two of my children have been on my mind so much lately.  That is not to say that I don't think about all of them a lot but sometimes life's struggles and joys with specific children can be consuming.

I haven't written on this bog since January which is just shocking to me.  I don't feel guilty about it though because there are times when some things just have to be left behind to survive.  This blog was one of many for me that I had to put down over the past few months.

Most of you know about our trial with Micah's health so I don't want to recap all of it.  He has been consuming and continues to be sometimes.  I have to repeatedly release him into God's hands and I'm learning more each day how to believe for something I cannot see.  We seem to take a few steps forward and then a few steps backwards.  We are waiting for his healing in several areas of his body.  His gut is messed up, his brain is full of toxins and his levels of minerals and vitamins are terribly low.  But I'm encouraged that now we know possibly why he was seizing and I'm encouraged because we are seeing some really good, normal days. All seizure activity has stopped since about 6 weeks ago. This is truly an answer to prayer.

He is on a detox program, a special diet and a whole slew of vitamins, minerals and yeast and parasite fighters.  I know he will get better because he is already getting better.  When I get discouraged and have a set-back with him, I just remember back to how he used to be a few months ago.  Then I realize that he has come so far!  Just the fact that he is going to bed without a fight and sleeping through the night in his own bed is a true miracle!

 God has taught me many things during this period so I thought I'd share just one.  A few months ago, Micah was spending large amounts of his time in an imaginary world.  Now this troubled me mostly because I've never had a child live in a fantasy world for more than an hour or so.  But Micah would wake up talking about things that just didn't make any sense.  He would continue this all morning and I couldn't talk to him about anything else so I was forced to play along.  Now, I knew this was a result of his brain trying to get back on the right track again.

We've all heard of imaginary friends before when dealing with children.  It's not uncommon but this was a little over the top for me.  I had to buckle her in her car seat, feed her lunch too and give her kisses at night.  He never forgot about her.  She was always there and he wouldn't hear of her being "pretend." When I would ask him where she was he would say, "right there" and point to the air where nothing was.  So as I was praying about it one morning, God spoke to my heart.

I felt him saying, "How can you discourage an imaginary friend when you tell him to believe in Me but he can't see me?"  We always tell Micah that Jesus is his friend and is with him always.  He often asks us, "Where is he?" as he looks around the room.  We reply, "He is with you everywhere you go."

I understood at that moment that God wants to be my "imaginary friend."  He wants me to talk to him all day long and remember that he is with me in the car, at mealtimes, and with me when I lay my head down at night.  How often do I go about my day and forget about my Lord?  More days than I can count, sad to say.

This all lasted about a week with Micah and I think it was just to teach me a tangible lesson about God and his desire to commune with us as much as possible.  He really is with us all the time, everywhere we go and we can talk to him just like Micah did with his "friend."

The other child that has been consuming my thoughts and time I'll have to post about at a later time.  I hope to have time next week to blog more since I'm trying to pick this back up again.

Thanks for reading!

Death

Julia and Anthony have been helping out a somewhat house bound lady that we know who lived close by.  Her husband works with mine at the same ministry.  Julia would clean her house every other week and Anthony would mow her lawn.  I sometimes would take her to her doctors appointments and then we'd go out for a milk shake and chat.  She had a cute little dog that would jump up in her lap and he was her baby.

We got a call the day before Christmas that she died suddenly in her sleep.  We all stood there stunned. She was always so joyful, not at all sickly.  She had a hard time getting around and sometimes had trouble with her memory.  She had pain but never much mentioned it.  None of us thought she was close to death.  It never crossed my mind.  She was only 64.

As I sat at her Memorial this week, I couldn't hold back the tears.  We started by singing a few songs and I realized I was a wreck.  We sang songs like Be Thou My Vision, Better is One Day, and 10,000 Reasons.   I was really surprised by how emotional I was?

  I think the significance of living life and then leaving life if so strange.  I mean it's beautiful to think about heaven and her life now. . . and a life well lived is so meaningful as well, but being here one day and then gone the next is so strange.  It's so sad.  I've always hated goodbyes and have avoided them all my life.  If you are a good friend and are moving far away where I might not see you much, you won't find me on the front lines saying farewell.  I'm just so uncomfortable with that.  So Wednesday at her Memorial, I had to say goodbye.  I'd rather not have had to but I didn't have a choice. My natural reaction was to cry.

Then as we watched a slide show of her life, a friend sang, Give Me Jesus by Jeremy Camp.  Isn't Jesus really what life and death is all about?  Perspective is always so good for me.  I'm a "here and now" kind of person.  It's difficult for me to see in to the future, to hope for the best.  God has to remind me so often that life is short and so much of the daily grind is not eternal.  When he pulls me out of the  "here and now" so I can see ahead, I find that when I look back, all that will matter is how I lived it for Him.  Give me Jesus!


When I come to die
When I come to die
Oh, when I come to die
Give me Jesus

Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
Just give me Jesus


  Here is a link to the song in case you want to listen:

http://www.elyrics.net/read/j/jeremy-camp-lyrics/give-me-jesus-lyrics.html

Kristin

Independent Child

I'm still in shock about the experience I had yesterday with Micah at the vitamin store I frequently shop at.  It made me realize that Micah is more independent than any of my other children have been growing up.  I'm really quit stunned that he could be so confident and sure of himself at such a young age.  I mean, he is only 4 years old and this character quality doesn't run in our family in any significant way.

He has expressed his independence several times with his outgoing personality, walking up to total strangers and starting conversations with them.  He must believe that everyone is nice and wants to be his friend.  Thankfully that is almost always the case!  I pray all the time that God would protect him from those who might want to do him harm.  Too bad we live in such a yucky world!

I still remember the time he walked right up to the snack shop at the baseball game and ordered from a picture menu.  He said, "I'll take one of those!" and proceeded to point to an ice cream picture.  The lady working the stand was kind and just gave him one.  All I could do was laugh and lightly rebuke him for not asking me first as we walked away.

Over the past few months we haven't seen this side of him at all until yesterday.  Does this mean he is more himself these days?  I believe so, which is such a praise!

So back to my story about yesterday.  Like I said, I was shopping and had both little ones with me.  They were both in the shopping cart.  I'm not sure I'll be able to take Micah shopping with me once he grows out of it because he is everywhere and touches everything.  Major training needed but his ability to have self-control is so limited right now.  So once I finished shopping, I went up to pay.  Thankfully this is a small store and there were hardly any people there, just a few.  I took Micah out of the cart so we could fit the groceries in it.  He was strictly instructed to stay close to me and the cart.  He immediately went behind the counter and told the cashier that he was big enough to work there!  We laughed and joked with him about it.  As I was putting my stuff in my wallet and getting situated, I noticed he walked a few feet away from me and was out of view.  I figured the cashiers were watching him, I mean there were three behind the counter and my back was to the store.  When I wheeled my cart around, he was nowhere to be seen.  I thought, "Oh great!  He is probably down one of the aisles touching something he shouldn't!"  I proceeded to look down each aisle, calling his name.  He wasn't there!  Ok, he must have gone the other direction and be down another aisle?  I asked the cashier if he knew where he went and he joked and said, "We put him to work!"  Very funny!  Now is not the time to joke with me.  I hurriedly looked down every aisle and had that sinking feeling.  I felt foolish for calling his name because it drew attention to me and it never works anyway because Micah thinks it's funny when I can't find him.  Knowing him, he would hide from me and that just makes me look like a foolish parent!

Ok, so no Micah anywhere!  The only place he could have escaped to would be outside.  Would he have gone to the car by himself?  As I looked outside at my van, I saw no little boy.  I asked the other cashiers if they saw a little 4 year old go outside by himself.  The manager said she saw him go towards that direction.  At this point they were starting to help me out.  I still had to unbuckle Levi and get my bags and they could see the urgency on my face.  The cashier helped me with my bags while I got Levi out of the cart. As we approached the van, I saw the door somewhat ajar and I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that he was in the van.  Sure enough, there he was waiting for me.  I gave him a strong lecture on how he should never leave the store without me!  I thought he was lost and had been looking for him.  He didn't seem to understand by the look on his face.

All the way home, I kept thinking, if I'm not fully grey and haven't had a heart attack by the time I'm 50 (that's only 4 years from now) it will truly be a miracle!